Finally after 7 or 8 weeks the Forgan dark spiced rum has finished fermenting. Its going to take 48 hours to clear and settle before its first distillation. The aromas of dark sugar and molasses are amazing. This is going to be a single cask rum aged in the barrel from the first [commercial] batch of Forgan corn whiskey.

The fermented wash is so thick and dark, I can't get a reading of the alcohol content due to it being so thick. I'm sure not all the sugar has turned to alcohol hence the reading on my bobber being useless.

Add your Forgan Gin and other ingredients into a cocktail shaker,, smack the rosemary a couple of times to release the aromas and add it, pop in a couple of ice cubes, and shake 15-20 seconds. Strain into an old-fashioned glass filled with ice. Garnish with a slapped sprig of rosemary

The sun is out, it's a long weekend so maybe finish this one and make yourself another, you deserve it.

Add your Forgan Gin and other ingredients into a cocktail shaker, pop in a handful of cracked ice, and shake it like you're being electrocuted for 10-15 seconds. Strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with wheel or wedge of lime.

I'm sipping mine while looking out at the view over the back field, but that's just me, enjoy yours however you want, but do enjoy it.

In your shaker, muddle the cucumber and mint leaves, add Forgan Gin, triple sec and orange blossom water, add ice, pop the top on and go crazy shakin' that ass, shakin' that ass... erm shaker until your hands get very cold, strain into an ice filled old fashioned glass.

Top with soda and gently stir.

Garnish with a sprig of mint and a cucumber wheel and thank Forgan it's Friday.

#ForganDistillery #ForganGin #ThankForgan

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https://forgandistillery.com/blogs/news/gin-of-the-week-also-some-brilliant-shakespearean-feedback2018-03-29T21:24:00+01:002018-03-29T21:25:11+01:00Gin of the Week!! Also Some Brilliant Shakespearean FeedbackPhilip Robbins

Forgan Gin is the gin of the week atRemedyandRemedy Churchtownso if you get chance have a wander down there, enjoy some ambience and try Forgan Gin or Forgan 74 gin.

I recommend you try it neat first, swirl it around in some ice, get it nice and cold and have a sip, have another sip and then sip again.

If you're adding tonic water Remedy stock a couple different ones and they're all excellent, but remember, 1 measure of Forgan Gin to half a measure of tonic, you don't want to drown it and lose all those subtle aromas and flavours.

Also, WOW, I received this feedback about Forgan 74 tonight, what a way to get my weekend off to a brilliant start. I'll be thinking about this when I'm starting off a new batch of gin tonight

"One word....WOW!!! That my friend is a master piece! One hell of a kick!! Loads of flavour and smooth as fuck...Just like it's creator!😘"

Making our own base spirit from scratch with sugar, grain, yeast and Scottish highland mineral water means we have absolute control over the quality and integrity of our products which means you get the smoothest and highest quality gin you deserve.

Get hold of your favourite cocktail shaker, and pour in 60ml of Forgan Gin, along with 30ml of Cointreau, 30ml Fresh Lemon Juice and 1 Egg White.

Dry shake all the ingredients for 15 seconds before adding a couple of ice cubes and shaking again vigorously for another 15 seconds, strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Grate some orange peel over the top and you're good to go.

I'll be enjoying my Lady Lyr while contemplating Rachmaninov's second piano concerto on the stereo but it goes down well with anything.

#ForganGin #cocktail #friday #chill #ThankForganItsFriday

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https://forgandistillery.com/blogs/news/more-leople-loving-forgan-gin2018-03-02T10:42:00+00:002018-03-02T10:43:23+00:00More People Loving Forgan GinPhilip Robbins
It's great than more people are enjoying our fabulous Forgan Gin, we got another 5 star review on Facebook, this time from Jemma.

"Loved this gin, not very often I find one so smooth I can drink neat over ice but this one hit the spot! Also fantastic with a squeeze of lime and a splash of tonic. Would definitely recommend."

The Classic Gin and Tonic Put your favourite gin glass in the freezer and leave it in there for at least 30 minutes

Remove the glass from the freezer drop a couple of ice cubes in it.Add a very generous pour of Forgan Gin, when you think there's enough add some more.Add a splash or two of tonic, you won't need much because Forgan Gin is so smooth and you don't want to drown the subtle scents, aromas and taste. Less is more.Garnish with a slice or 2 of lemon. I like to give the rind light squeeze to release some of the oils and waft if over the glass.

You're now ready to start the weekend, and what a great way to start it.

"Congrats on creating a fine Gin. I have over 15 - 20 different Gins in my collection at any one time and this is up there with finest. It's fantastic. Well done."

Thanks for the review Craig, you Rock!

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https://forgandistillery.com/blogs/news/great-to-see-forgan-gin-rubbing-shoulders-with-some-of-the-greats2018-02-06T21:11:00+00:002018-02-06T21:38:04+00:00Great To See Forgan Gin Rubbing Shoulders With Some Of The GreatsPhilip Robbins
Spotted on Friday night in Wine Rack Birkdale, Southport, Forgan Gin rubbing shoulders with some fabulous gins at Wine Rack in Birkdale, Southport.

#ForganGin #ForganDistillery

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https://forgandistillery.com/blogs/news/people-like-what-were-doing-at-forgan-distillery2017-12-03T16:41:00+00:002017-12-03T16:41:44+00:00People Like What We're Doing At Forgan DistilleryPhilip Robbins

After a long tiring day in the Forgan Distillery this is what makes it all worth it. Great feedback.

"Hi Philip,Just tried Forgan [Gin], would just like to say It's a very nice gin, drinking it neat and it's very very smooth. Doesn't need any mixers, Getting a lot of citrus coming through and I like it. 10 out of 10.

RegardsKarl"

Thanks Karl. The smoothness is down to us making our own base spirit instead of buying it in. By using highland mineral water, triple distilling our product and using top-quality produce to make the best possible gin we can means you get to enjoy something very special.

Philip recently proudly presented me with a bottle of clear liquid. I had ordered Gin.

I got it home and gave it pride of place... head line position in the centre and front of my spirits shelf. It even relegated my prized Dalwhinnie single malt whiskey to second position of the podium; I'd heard from others it deserved No 1 position.

After a few days looking at it longingly and in anticipation, surely it cant be as good as everyone has told me. After All we all have experienced the teeth furring disappointment of home made wine and beer proudly presented to us by dear friends/relatives awaiting our glowing endorsement, which of course we've all reluctantly given - a little white lie to save our relationship.

I gently pushed back the clips that hold the sealing cap to the bottle and poured the crystal clear liquid into my best gin glass. The smell of summer envigorated my nostrils, i gently laced it with a slices of fresh lemon and lime. Finally the final accoutrement... the tonic, fizzed to the top of the glass, releasing more of the juniper aroma we all have cone to expect from London's or Bombay's finest export.

The ceremony over and the anticipation ended. The moment had arrived to purse my lips and caress my tongue with my favourite of all drinks. This gin danced across my tongued and fell to the back of my mouth. The exquisite flavour remained on my tongue as the liquid vanished, my smile of delight gave away the fact that my book of white lies could, thankfully, remain closed.

Now the dilemma! do I gulp and enjoy this drink's majestey or sip and savour the delicate magnificence of this glass of liquid english summer? I chose the second option; i couldn't let this delight dissipate in the blink of an eye. And so on to the next dilemma, should I buy just another bottle or the case? Now that is a decision I continue to wrestle with.

My recommendation to you, dear reader, is don't delay, summer is too short, your back garden and deck chair require the embellishment of a quality gin, you need to look no further than Philip's.

I hope your weekend was a blessed one for you. You asked for feedback on the gin sample, First of all I thought it smelled delicious and tasted liked it smelt. (meaning you know how coffee smells delicious until you taste it and quite often the taste lets you down). Well it seems you have managed to pull off the oracle, I thoroughly enjoyed the Bees Knees and my tummy instantly became warm and comforted . I only had one glass of the Bees Knees as I promised to share the rest with my manager. In short you have a convert, I loved it. Thank you for sharing.

Kind regards

Kay x

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https://forgandistillery.com/blogs/news/how-did-i-end-up-here2017-10-14T12:05:00+01:002017-10-23T19:06:37+01:00How Did I End Up Here?Philip Robbins

When on Honeymoon in 2008 in Bagni Di Lucca we went into a small independent drink shop, all they sold was Grappa and while looking around I saw on their top shelves a display of small stills. They cost between EU100 and EU300 and I quite wanted to buy one, but with the problems of getting it home undamaged in airplane stowed luggage I decided against it. When we got home I looked on the internet for a small still but kept putting off buying one for a couple of years, in fact I never bought on myself, I put it on my Christmas list in 2012 and my wife bought me one. It’s a small half-litre still made out of beaten and burnished copper, it came with a small spirit burner as a heat source, it’s such a pretty thing.

The first thing I distilled was Cinzano bianco, it’s 15%ABV in the bottle but I had no idea what %ABV was coming out of the still. The instructions said something along the lines of “up to 85%ABV” so I bought a alcoholometer from everyone’s favourite shopping site thinking I better see what I’m up against before I poison myself, as it turned out I had extracted 60%ABV from the Cinzano. I was doing science!!

One thing worth mentioning before continuing… a lot of people seem to think that distillation is some kind of magic and it creates alcohol. It doesn’t. All distillation does is to remove the alcohol from something already containing alcohol, just in a concentrated form. Also not all alcohol is “good” alcohol, yeah, some of it is really bad for you. When distilling homemade wash the one of the first alcohols that comes off is methanol, this is the stuff that makes you go blind if you drink enough of it long enough and if you carry on after that, it will kill you. Once the methanol has finished the ethanol come off and this is the good stuff, we can drink it – we let ours out to 42%ABV after the final distillation.

Every now and again I would distil something, red wine, port, bourbon, white wine, anything that was in the back of the cupboard, I seem to remember distilling Midori once, it was erm.. "interesting". After a while my distilling output was getting up to 80%ABV but didn’t really taste of much so I started picking herbs out of the garden, muddling them and letting them steep in my distillate for a day or so then redistilling it, the results were mostly not good, but it was fun and I was learning, the good results were surprisingly good, however the bad… yeah, it was pretty grim.

I’ve was never a gin drinker, the smell of it wafting around on airplanes always assaulted my nose (I even got it when I flew on Concorde from New York to Heathrow that one time…), the perfume of it and the smell of it on people’s breath was horrid and I was never really into the whole colonial thing. My grandmother drank gin, I mean really, how nice could it be?

I won a 1 litre bottle of Bombay Sapphire at work, unsure what to do with it I put it in a cupboard at home until one Friday night when there was nothing else to drink I took it out. There was no tonic at home – why would there be, I don’t drink gin! – and searched on the internet for gin cocktail recipes. And so it started.

Because I had vermouth for making Manhattans the obvious choice for a gin cocktail was a classic Martini, the first one was odd and not enjoyable, too much vermouth is the death of a good Martini, less vermouth is definitely more. I soon progress on to Gimlets, French 75s, Pink Gins, Gibsons and so the list continues..

My brother in law Brendan Dawes and I got a gin sampling set from Master of Malt and started to discover a whole other world of flavours, textures and botanicals. We had Bathtub gin, Hendricks, Boxer and others. I like gin! In fact I like gin so much I wanted to give up my day job, make my own gin and I wanted set up a distillery to make it commercially.

A half-litre still wasn’t going to be sufficient for my plans so I spent £90 and got myself a 20 litre pot still from Amazon, it came from China and wasn’t a quality product but once I straightened all the bent bits out and after much research I started experimenting. The first several products were drinkable but not particularly palatable, they made for an ok cocktail at best, but I persevered, no one went blind and things got better. I was surprised at what small amounts of botanicals are needed to infuse a base spirit to make a tasty gin, and the handfuls I had been chucking in were very much overkill, so I used less and tried different combinations documenting everything and trying to pick out the most pleasant notes and trying to combine them with others to make a quality product that I was proud of.

Bren put it perfectly when he said “the niggles still fester though”. I’m my biggest critic, and realised I’m not the best person to critique my own product, fortunately when it comes to free alcohol there’s always an army of willing testers.

One thing I realised early on about giving away alcohol is some people say nice things because they want more free alcohol, these were not the people I wanted on-board to help progress my dream so I started giving out a short questionnaire to complete and return after tasting, I doubt I even got a quarter of these back and most didn’t really offer anything of value, now it was time to deal with disappointment, not something I’ve ever really had to deal with in things I’ve tried to do in the past, maybe because none were important enough that I couldn’t just shrug my shoulders and move on. This was my dream, my way of getting off the hamster wheel, my retirement plan and things were getting in the way so I removed them.

I gathered a small force of gin drinkers, people who drink gin rather than anything else, people who like gin and who appreciate gin and started testing again. The results were mostly positive and the negatives didn’t disappoint, they helped because were constructive, they gave me things to consider, ideas about things I could change and so I continued until I had a viable product which after one last tweak became Forgan Gin which is when a whole load of things became apparent that I had managed to avoid thinking about. The business.

Thankfully when you know and associate yourself with like-minded people who believe in themselves and you, you can draw on their expertise and knowledge and put it to use. I wanted my own distillery, and I wanted my own commercial business, I wanted to sell Forgan Gin but the business side of it and all those things was daunting. My brother in law who set up his own business some years ago was brilliant, he offered help, guidance and encouragement and one of the most valuable things I learnt from him is to always have a notebook and pen to hand, writing things down means less things to keep you awake at night!

One frustration which at the time which I thought to be the biggest frustration was dealing with HMRC. When I applied for my licensing, it took them weeks to get back to me I think 6 weeks was the longest time, and they were always wanting more and different information, but in reality I think it was just me obsessing about not knowing if they would say yes or no. When they said they wanted more information I was able to supply it within 48 hours, but not knowing was driving me a bit crackers. They’re actually really nice people to deal with, you just need patience. I was granted my licence on August 6th 2017.

On August 7th2017 I ordered 200+kg of ingredient to start off my first commercial batch of Forgan Gin, I can sell it, people can buy it. I hope they do. I visited many independent drinks shops, bars and pubs in Southport, because this is a truly local gin there’s been a lot of interest. There are of course other local gins but mine has a unique selling point, I ferment my own wash, most if not all of the others whilst being "made" locally are not crafted locally. The base spirit for those is made in the Midlands and transported up here before being infused with the specific botanicals for each outlet and bottled, I make my own base spirit from water, sugar, grain and yeast for a truly authentic locally produced gin.

Forgan gin is triple distilled on modern equipment for a unique taste and smoothness.